Digital intelligence blog

WebMD to launch Medscape Germany 'in coming months'

Expands doctor portal’s local language reach and follows new French healthcare professionals' site

WebMD is set to continue the European expansion of its flagship doctors' portal with the forthcoming launch of Medscape Germany.

The US-based health information company told PMLiVE it expects a local language version of its healthcare professional site to go live “over the next few months”.

WebMD has already unveiled Medscape.fr for French healthcare professionals (pictured above) and both it and the new German site will feature “local and global medical content tailored to the HCP audience in those respective countries”.

“These aren't just local language translations, they're actually matching the healthcare systems in both of those countries so that they're very customised, and that's where I see a tremendous opportunity,” WebMD's new CEO Cavan Redmond told PMLiVE.

Redmond joined the firm last month from Pfizer, where he most recently served as group president of animal health, consumer healthcare and corporate strategy, and sat on the pharma company's leadership team.

He said the new European sites will “expand the reach and the depth of what we do in those countries”, and add to its UK partnership with pharmacy chain Boots. The partners set up the Boots WebMD consumer-facing online health information site nearly two years ago.

WebMD says it already has a strong European user-base among healthcare professionals, with over 40 per cent of physicians in the region currently using the US version of its portal, Medscape.com, for professional purposes.

“[They] use our website for everything from continuing medical education through to tapping into editorial that covers almost all of the major healthcare conferences and sessions,” Redmond explained.

“But in order to be most impactful you've got to be able to execute locally, within the local health environment, and that's exactly what we're trying to do in the UK, Germany and France.”

WebMD said it hopes to capitalise on the interest from European healthcare professionals by developing more local language sites from which it expects to see “significant growth”.

• PMLiVE's monthly magazine PME will feature an exclusive interview with WebMD's Cavan Redmond in one of its next issues. Subscribe here to read it first.